The second installment to the republished series of Jim Henson's StoryTeller, comes "The Snow Witch" which is a single stand alone story. This story is set within old Asian folklore, about a witch who comes to take your soul when you are dying. Being a classic myth in Japanese culture, it is fascinating for me to see this used in contemporary comic literature. Kyla Vanderklugt has written and illustrated this second installment, and she seems to also be acutely aware of the classic Asian art style, as she uses the style beautifully in the creation of this comic. Kyla follows the overarching style of the previous installment of this series with her use of pastel colours which make the comic easy to associate with fairytales and lighter reading. It soon becomes obvious, however, very early on that this comic contains content which is much darker than typical light reading.
It is as if the makers of this series hope to slowly bring the StoryTeller series to a darker and more mythical plane, away from the previous stories about children’s fairytales. In "The Snow Witch" a young boy is witness to the Snow Witch of the mountains eating the soul of the old man who he is helping in the woods. He has to promise the Snow Witch that he will never speak of her again, or else she threatened that she will find him and make him pay. As an opening to a comic, this is definitely gripping for the reader. Especially because each of these comics is a stand alone in the four comic series, it really encourages an interesting kind of reader involvement. The reader is not waiting for the story to finish after a cliff-hanger a month later, but the reader is limited to experiencing the entire story in a single floppy. Overall, I find this to be an extremely effective way to construct a comic.
Another way in which this comic is unlike any others I have previously read is how it is meant to be read from top to bottom instead of from left to right. This forces the panels to be wider and more cinematic in style, allowing the scope of the harsh winter landscape depicted to come through. The artwork, which is also fluid and based with water colours forces the reader to slow down and really examine all that is going on in a single panel.
The panels are also lined with thick dark gutters, unlike the typical white gutters of a comic. This may have been used to evoke a sense of foreboding of the events of the story, which is centered in the dark unforgiving winters of Japan. The panels are all aligned perfectly from the top of the page, down to the bottom of the page, allowing the reader an ease when reading the dialogue. Kyla has obviously put in quite a bit of effort to make sure this comic was accessible for whoever decided to pick it up.
There is, however, a break in this classic style where Kyla rotates the entire middle panel of a two page spread into the shape of a diamond. This is done in one of the first panels where the Snow Witch arrives. This could be used to demonstrate how she is unlike the entire story which has previously come before her, and unlike all the regular panels which will surely come after her. It is as if her presence shakes up the world of the comic because she is not really from the diagetic world of the rest of the story.
The colour palette also changes from fresh and diverse pastels to dark and grey muddy colours when the Snow Witch enters the comic. This switch demonstrates that this scene is not from the same world which the reader had previously been exposed. The Snow Witch is meant to inhabit her own world, where the colours are all different and the panels are in diamond shape instead of the standard square or rectangle.
This comic focuses a lot on the artwork and body language of the characters to convey the message of the story. There is minimal dialogue in the entire work; in my opinion, this allows the story to really feel as if it is happening in a fairytale world, as the dialogue is usually something which grounds a comic in our reality.
Overall, the StoryTeller series is one comic series which changes from each issue to the next, allowing time for many different fairytale myths to be explored throughout its four part run. This edition uses skilled art and colouring, as well as using the gutter space to the best of their ability to demonstrate the difference in tone throughout the comic.
I am excited for next month's addition to this series, to see which myth is explored, and to see what a new writer and artist can add to these classic tales.
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